Brain Dead

I saw this at the GoreZone magazine Gore-Fest this weekend- in London (it was the UK premier-) i was looking forward to seeing this film- and although the title is ludicrously unoriginal - (most people will think it's Dead Alive/Brain Dead let's be honest!!) it didn't disappoint.

Packed full of excellent splatter gore and comedic situations- and not taking itself too seriously- A breath of (not so) fresh air - and more than holds it's own in it's genre. Some great comedic acting from the felon reluctantly on the run handcuffed to a dim witted trigger happy psycho- and the eye candy cliché babes in distress also did well with tongue firmly in cheeks and totally self aware of their stereotype! I recommend this to anyone who enjoyed Bad Taste, Brain Dead, Undead- and Kevin S. Tenneys previous works 'Night of the Demons' & 'Witchboard'. Enjoy.

I watched Brain Dead late one evening on the Horror Channel, not expecting to much. The film helped kill a few hours and that was about it, it clearly comes under the category of it's so bad its 'good' I use the word 'good' loosely.

Plot:

We see three couples, two prisoners, two women with a weird lesbian undertone and the Reverend Farnsworth and his young disciple 'Candy' who all end up in a cabin together, where they are attacked by Alien Zombies and a Weird black blob.

Hot or Not:

The film is clearly made on a low budget and there is nothing wrong with that, 'if' the film is made correctly. The problem here is that Brain Dead tries too hard at being funny and although on occasions it did bring a smile to my face, it seemed I the majority of the time I was laughing at how bad the film was rather than the scripted jokes. The set throughout the whole film was so obviously fake, even down to the walls within the cabin. This is no Evil Dead although it would like to be. On a positive note there is some good nude scenes for people who like that and the special effects are quite good for the budget of the film, maybe they should have toned down on the money spent on effects in order to improve the set design.

Birds and the Bees:

Loads of breasts and Bums on display here but nothing for the gals here.

Acting:

The acting in this film is very poor, although I have seen worse. Sometimes it comes across deliberate. Joshua Benton as clarence and Sarah Grant Brendecke as Sherry Morgan did OK as leads.

Overall:

I would only watch this film if you really have nothing else to watch or if you are a fan of low budget films as Brain Dead is better than most. However I think they showed too much interest in making it funny rather than scary, there was little balance, this is no Evil Dead!

A sleepy fishing port town is consumed with terror when a small crater crash-lands nearby and releases a slimy parasitic agent that transforms the residents into brain-eating zombies. Cornered in an abandoned fishing lodge, six strangers are forced to band together to stave off the blood-sucking monsters clawing the walls outside.

I get a little worried when you have a horror film from a known director (Kevin Tenney, "Witchboard" and "Night of the Demons") and it takes three years to go from film festival to DVD. I get the impression that it must be pretty bad if companies are not willing to take a chance on a man who is known to have a winning streak in his past. Does my apprehension have basis in reality?

Well, the film is great at what it does, let us say that. Cheesy? Oh, yes. But the gore is amazing, very much in the splatter tradition of Lamberto Bava's "Demons". This film does not take itself seriously, but I think that is its strength, because the low budget does not give it the ability to be too serious. Tenney approached this the right way.

Amy is very, very sexy with a cute face and the seductive hairstyle that lures dirty old men. Her breasts are a bit large for my liking, but I am probably in the minority and I really probably should not complain at all -- what is a horror film without topless women? And there are topless and bottomless women... and the big breasts just keep bouncing (and floating).

One cheesiness that could have been cleaned up was the tattoo on the convict... just not believable at all. No tattoo is that dark. But then, you get lines like, "My phone bill is higher than Whitney Houston", and it all seems okay.

I would feel like I failed in my duty if I neglected to say this film has an obvious connection to "The Blob", with its villain being of a meteor origin. But the connection is weak, and it is neither an homage nor a ripoff.

Let's face it...some movies merely exist as a vehicle to turn your brain off for an hour and a half or so. They are not for thinkers, hipsters, or people who don't know a joke when they see one. That is precisely why movies like Brain Dead get made and sometimes they'll make you happy that they do get made. Unlike a good number of big budget blockbusters who are just as goofy but take themselves way too seriously, a fair amount of movies (especially in the horror genre) plant their tongue firmly in cheek and keep winking at the camera.

There's nothing terribly original here...a bunch of people from different walks of life and about as different as they could possibly be wind up in a cabin in the middle of nowhere under assault by the undead. Yes, you've seen it before...but there's not a ton of fertile ground for new zombie stories. Be my guest and try, but I'm betting a fair number of zombie purists will cry and whine. On the whole this movie looks like it had a bit of a budget but it certainly won't have you checking to see why did the special effects. It kind of looks like a Sci-Fi Channel movie that way...not low budget but certainly watching what it spends.

None of the actors are particularly stand out but they all do their jobs just fine. And, as a man, I have no problem with clearly gratuitous amounts of nudity. Complain if you want, but boobs just belong in horror movies. Period. Now previously I mentioned the special effects...that only goes for the CGI. All of the practical effects and gore are actually done pretty well and usually with hilarious consequences. Bottom line is that if every movie you watch simply MUST have some thought provoking subtext, steer clear of this movie and stay the hell away from me as well. You're far too self serious and need to be kept away from society. If you can, on the other hand, agree to turn your brain off for a bit of time, maybe crack open a beer or two and have a couple laughs this may be worth a look. That's more than I can say for a lot of horror movies being made these days.

This is now on Amazon Prime. It says 2020 but is really this movie. Zombies attack trailer trash is how it is pitched. It is more like, hey there is a good looking woman. Director cue the nude scene. What about the zombies? Cue the nude scene...

About half way through the movie they are there for a tame take on Evil Dead. Good fun but probably the only thing memorable was the brunette who stripped for her naughty scene in a pond.